Anchor Cards

“Anchor card” is a term I came up with for a personal concept of sorts where I use cards that I am good at taking, having a strong mental image for, or are simply favorites to help memorize a layout more easily.

For instance, let’s say I have the following layout (taken from the Online Karuta app for convenience):

Let’s say that on my side, “taka” makes me think of a hawk, but the adjacent cards (miyo and konu) don’t make me think of anything in particular. I could use the “taka” card as an anchor, visualizing whatever it makes me think of (doesn’t need to be accurate to the poem), then think “miyo is to the left, konu is above it” to help memorize it more easily.

Perhaps for the opponent’s side, the 4 cards together at the top left (their bottom-right) are hard to remember because they’re so close and all have very different kimariji. Maybe for the hanano[iro] card I think of a flower of some color, or it’s simply one of my best cards, so I’m extra conscious of it, and for the tsuki card next to it I think of a moon; with these cards settled, what might start as a blur of many cards turns into a partial image, and I can fill in the cards I might not take as much note of as being next to the cards I do take note of.

As mentioned, the concept of anchor cards is just a personal one, but I find that if I have a general idea of what parts of a field contain what cards, the field feels less “foreign” to me, and I’m less likely to wonder things like “what cards are even there?”, or “did I forget a card?”.

However, ultimately you must find and decide on what methods help you yourself memorize both your field and the opponent’s field, so this is just one possibility/suggestion for how to make it easier.